Justice Probes Document Alterations in Sales to Iraq

By Douglas Frantz
and Murray Waas

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON

The Department of Justice is investigating allegations that Bush
administration officials altered records sent to Congress to disguise
shipment of technology with military uses to Iraq, according to interviews
and documents.

The investigation is trying to determine which officials were responsible
for deleting military designations on some of the administration-approved
export licenses and whether the changes violated federal law, two sources
said.

Congress requested the list as part of its examination of administration
policies that allowed Iraq to buy high-tech American goods, some of which
were used to build Saddam Hussein's military power. The deletion of some
military descriptions meant that Congress did not get an accurate picture
of the material licensed for sale.

The information was compiled from data at the Department of Commerce, which
regulates export of sensitive technology.

Two officials at the National Security Council supervised the compilation
and production of the records for a House investigative committee last
year, said two administration officials familiar with the preparation of
the material. The NSC was one of the agencies that implemented the Reagan
administration policy of increasing sales to Iraq in the 1980s.

The sources said they were aware of no evidence that the NSC officials
participated in the alterations, and no one has been accused of
wrongdoing.

A confidential internal Department of Commerce memo indicates that
high-ranking officials at the department and the White House provided
guidance in the preparation of the list for Congress, but the memo does not
discuss any alterations to the list or name any officials.

The investigation centers on export licenses for the sale of $1.5 bill ion
worth of high-tech goods to Iraq between 1985 and 1990. Rep. Doug Barnard
(D-Ga.), chairman of the House Government Operations subcommittee on
commerce, consumer, and monetary affairs, sought a list of the licenses
last year as part of an inquiry into whether lax controls during the Reagan
and Bush administrations allowed Iraq to obtain U.S. technology used in
developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Alterations to entries were discovered after the Department of Commerce
turned over the list, and Barnard complained.

An internal investigation by the department's inspector general found
alterations on 68 of the 771 licenses on the list, according to a copy of
the report. After removing evidence of military uses and making other
changes to entries on the list, the report said the permanent files at the
Department of Commerce also were altered.

The most serious example cited in the report involved changing the
description on licenses for $1 billion worth of trucks from "vehicles
designed for military use" to "commercial utility cargo trucks" or simply
"vehicles."

In another instance, an exporter added a written notice to a license
cautioning that sensitive technology was being shipped to an Iraqi user
"involved in military matters," but the phrase was cut from the document
sent to Congress.

After receiving the inspector general's findings last summer, Barnard asked
the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation. Noting that the
inspector general had not mentioned potential criminal conduct, Barnard
said, "I believe that it is a crime to knowingly supply false information
to Congress."